[ISEA2009] Artist Statement: Allan Hughes – The Listening Station (Counting Backwards), 2008/09

Artist Statement

Twin monitor, synchronised DVD installation, dimensions variable

The Listening Station explores the partial and ongoing decommissioning of the British army communications post on Black Mountain, Belfast, examining the psychic history of it’s recent past. The listening station was initially put into service during the Cold War and has subsequently figured as a totemic sentinel of Britain’s political and military surveillance of Belfast, being visible from nearly anywhere in the city on it’s strategic vantage point. The facility is currently being dismantled after the land was sold to the National Trust for environmental conservation in 2005. Some features of the installation still remain and function but many have gone.

  • Allan Hughes. Currently on residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Allan Hughes is an artist based in Belfast at Orchid Studios.

Full text (PDF) p. 17